Jon1139

Hi All,

Any one have any experience with this brand? They are very cheap. Are they any good?


Thanks,
Jon

essjayarr

I think you will get conflicting opinions on this one.
How ever, I will speak from my personal experience.
I have Togear headers and 200 cell cats on my '99 C2. I found the quality and fit to be very, very good and price reasonable.
Some have complained of CELs after install of the 200 cell cats. I have never had a CEL on my car since before or after the install.
In my case, my engine is a fresh FSI Streetperformer 3.6 and I also at the time of the Topgear parts install I installed new plugs, coil packs and all 4 O2 sensors with Bosch universal fit ones.
I've put about 13k miles and not had a single problem so far.

Silk

Very good build quality.
perfect fit
pricewise almost unbeatable if you see what other brands are asking for their products!

Also sound nothing to complain. Although that is a more subjective parameter!

I had the Topgear headers with their big bore x-pipe.

Unfortunately at that time the x-pipe was not a good match with the Carnewal modded mufflers I had then. The Carnewal mod to my opinion tends to drone to some extent (depending on rpm and throttle) and the x-pipe pronounced the drone too much. As the car is my daily driver I went back to topgear 200 cell cross over cats.

Sometime after that I upgraded to Cargraphic TUV silencers which is still one of the best upgrades I ever did. They are so good in accentuating the typical boxer sound and filtering out all the overkill drone. I think If I ever need to replace my cats I certainly will consider going back to a Top Gear x-pipe. As I expect them to be a good match with the Cargraphic mufflers.

When going to 200 cell cats I also replaced all the oxygen sensors. Never had a CEL.

35k miles and still going strong

NYoutftr

There is a lot of history of Top Gear and the inception of Kline Innovation.
If you go back five or six years there were some good articles about family ties along with design and production overlap.
When using any X pipe, there is a high probability you will throw some CEL with codes indicating O2 errors.
You can use the O2 sensor adapters that move the sensor out a little ways and at an angle, I believe Fabspeed makes a quality set of adapters.
Top Gear 200 Cell Big Bore X pipe is a quality piece, it has 63mm pipe, the less expensive version has 54mm. Many High performance muffler boxes will have a larger diameter opening utilizing the the larger cat pipe bore, such as Tubi Style.
Your exhaust components should all compliment each other, starting right at new exhaust manifold bolts, good gaskets, equal length primary tube headers with a free flowing collector, this should continue with similar diameter right into the catalytic converter, then out of converter and into the muffler box.
If you look at photos all over the internet of exhaust systems on our 996s, you will see this symmetry on a high quality install, or you can see the opposite, with tubing diameters going up and down with reducers and expanders, the photos are out there.

Mbren1979

I am one of the lesser satisfied customers. My headers dont fit good. All the bolts to the block line up except 1 on each side. I also have the big bore x pipe with 200 cell cats. They set a check engine light (not a big deal to me) and now i notice the passanger side cat rattles a little. I am highly disapointed in them. Purchased my setup back in march i believe. Customer service was on point on the order and shipping process (was in a hurry for a track event). Then once the problems came up they ghosted me.

essjayarr

I should note that I do not have a Topgear Xpipe, but the individual pieces, same as stock style.

AnthonyGS

I too installed their stock style replacement cats and fitment was good. I had a CEL due to a failed stock cat, 2 years later and I’m still good on the Top Gear replacements.

bill_996

I've had my TopGear system installed for a bit longer than a year - headers, 200 cell x-pipe cat (stock 54mm bore), "mild" mufflers and quad tips. Overall I am pleased with the price/performance but I did have an issue that still is not resolved. I have a 2001 C2 Cab (996.1 NB with the 3.4L engine) and the tips I received were too long - perhaps for a C4 wide-body car. Similar to one of the posts above, pre-sales customer service was good and they shipped quickly and at a reasonable cost, but when I wanted to return the tips (I found a set on eBay that fit perfectly) they ghosted me. I shipped them back, which cost me about $100 for an item worth about $250 and no reply to my repeated requests for a refund. Not cool.

I developed a leak at the header gasket when I first took the car out this Spring - my installer had used the gaskets included with the headers instead of OEM ones and so I had to get them re-installed at another shop. I also had lost both nuts on one of the clamps between the cat and muffler. To be honest I don't know if it was just shoddy installation since he actually used OEM clamps, not the cheap u-joint ones provided by Top Gear.

One last thing - the so-called "mild" mufflers are too quiet in my opinion. With a cabriolet and wanting to keep spouse and neighbors at bay I erred on the side of too quiet and if I had to do it again I would have gone for the sport mufflers and bigger bore x pipe.

i replaced my o2 sensors with new Bosch ones at the time of the install and have never had an issue with CELs.

My original mufflers (with about 80K miles, with some of that in Canadian winters on salted roads) were rusted out and not suitable for exchange for Fister mufflers or to do a Gundo hack. I am still considering that for these mild mufflers. My .02 - listen to as many clips and videos as you can and find the price/performance sweet spot that feels right to you...

motoo344

I have had the loud mufflers on for a few months now. No complaints, fitment is good for the price but definitely order OEM hardware as the hardware they send is not very good.

DeanClevername

I've had TopGear's smaller bore x-pipe cats on for about a year on my 996.2. No quality issue other than a CEL (expected and I just ordered extenders), no fitment issues, no droning (have fister modded cans). It was actually almost too quiet at first, but the sound has filled out with miles and now I'd say it's perfect. Combo is completely unobtrusive in normal driving while still having a sense you're in a 911 not a Prius, volume increases with load and throttle angle in a nice linear way. Pretty much the perfect volume balance for someone who doesn't want to sound like a hooligan but doesn't want to be pointlessly quiet like the stock exhaust. Smaller bore keeps up flow velocity at low RPM so no torque loss under 4k like with my old larger x-pipe, but still seeming to make the engine more eager to rev out to 7k vs stock.

I would be hesitant to sink too much money into a 996's exhaust in search of power. It doesn't seem like there is much to be gained without a massive compromise of some kind. My M&M/FVD catless large bore x-pipe seemed to add significant power above 4.5k rpm and subtract an equal amount below 4k. Really sucked on the street or autox, perfect if you're building a dedicated track car. Sounded glorious (for miles around) though.

flomofo

Ordered the headers and big bore x-pipe.

Cel popped up for the post cat sensors and manifolds were off in fitment. Also had an annoying vibration/resonance that required solid mounting the x-pipe in the center like with the factory exhaust crossover pipes.

Sort of got a response from the company via PM/email messages from a representative I tracked down on a UK forum after a lot of tries. But the responses quickly ended after describing and sending photos of the issues I had with the manifolds. If the problems I experienced were normal I wasn't told that and with some people not experiencing them it seems like it shouldn't be...I was just told that they usually don't have issues.

Quality of the manifolds was not good on my set and the x-pipe required some work too. So you definitely get what you pay for which would have been okay if the company had stood behind the product a bit better...

Ultimately, it sounded good with some Fister mufflers but I'd go with someone else if I was starting from scratch again.

triggz82

I had the same experience as @DeanClevername . I went with the 54mm pipe 200 cell cats paired with gundo hack mufflers. The sound is pretty quiet - slightly louder than just the gundo mufflers themselves. I had a tune done as well and have no cel issues. The quality looked very good and fitment is perfect. I hope the sound increases with time as I've only put about 1000km on this setup so far. I tend to hear more intake at mid-rpms now than exhaust note.

I also had a catless x-pipe prior with larger diameter piping on the same mufflers. This was insanely loud in a good way. My issue with the catless setup is the drivability was pretty bad. The car is neutered under 4000rpm and will occasionally stutter under load at low rpms. Above 4k the power gains are very noticable at least according to my butt dyno. In the end the sound didn't make up for the other issues so I swapped it out.

DeanClevername

I definitely needed miles to get the sound to mature and increase. When I originally went from 200 cell crossover cats + fisters to hatless x-pipe + fisters the car was MUCH quieter. Which was shocking. I can assure you, this did not last haha. The car became QUITE loud. Similar experience when I went back to the crossover cats temporarily and then to the TopGear 200 cell x-pipe + fisters. Very quite at first, but as the miles racked up it ended up being absolutely perfect. I think somewhere around 1k miles I slowly realized the low rpm overly quiet nature was starting to fade. Is the gundo hack different than the filter mod?

I made some very mundane videos from the inside and outside with the top gear 54mm 200 cell x-pipe + fisters in preparation to list the car on BaT. Here they are so you can have a reference point. Never crazy loud, just enough noise that you can hear a blend of that sweet intake sound from the inside. Car now belongs to another rennlister so maybe he will have his own thoughts on the current state of the sound.

Cold start

Low and high rpm drive by/acceleration

Inside acceleration and cruise (more high rpm in the 2nd half). Please excuse the Covid-haircut. This was fall 2020

plpete84

Dean - I've met with the new owner not long ago and had a chance to see and drive the car (testing the Ohlins - pulled the trigger and installed them this weekend). I can attest to how good the car sounds. It's definitely on the louder side but I wouldn't call it obnoxious. Your neighbors will know when you start it up but driving at a constant speed was not too loud or drone prone. Once you get 4.5k rpm is when the sound really changes and changes for the better. Very motorsport sound, louder and higher pitch - I liked it quite a bit.

DeanClevername

It's in a good home now! I miss that car tons. Glad you were able to check it out. After the 200 cell x-pipe breaks in it really has no shortage of volume. Never droned for me, and was pretty civilized at low throttle angles. My stock M2 drones during normal or highway driving in sport or with all traction control off, but when you get on it and want it to be loud, it seems quiet. Go figure *shrugs*